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What you need to know: College grads

It’s the season for lilacs, baseball and college commencements. We’ll skip the first two signs of spring and instead hit on a few things to know about our college graduates — what they’ve studied and what they pursue.

Consider the most recent data we have on our graduates:

Thirty percent of all bachelor’s degrees earned in Minnesota last year were earned at our colleges. That translates to 10,027 bachelor’s degrees from our 17 nonprofit colleges and universities. (There are 10,444 at the U of M system and 10,950 at the MnSCU state universities.)

For our graduates who started at and completed their degrees at the same institution, 87 percent do so within four years. This completion rate is the best in the state.

When you look specifically at graduates of color in Minnesota, 30 percent earn their degrees at our institutions — or 1,519 graduates.

You can also consider our grads of color as a share of all grads: 16 percent of our graduates are students of color, compared to 17 percent at the U of M system and 15 percent at the MnSCU state universities.

Top 10 bachelor's degree fields by number of graduates at Minnesota's private colleges

Bachelor's degree fields

# of degrees earned

Our % of state total

Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services

2,071

33%

Health Professions and Related Programs

1,249

37%

Social Sciences

841

36%

Biological and Biomedical Sciences

838

33%

Psychology

653

30%

Visual and Performing Arts

504

31%

Education

466

22%

English Language and Literature/Letters

402

34%

Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs

397

27%

Physical Sciences (e.g. chemistry, physics)

389

49%

What they are studying is varied as well:

The most popular area for our students to find their majors is business-related disciplines, with more than 2,000 degrees in the most recent year. The other top draws for majors are health care, social sciences, biology, psychology, the arts and education.

Our grads are particularly interested in certain fields. When we look at our grads’ disciplines as a share of all those awarded in the state, that share is higher than our overall 30 percent share of bachelor’s degrees in several areas, including physical sciences, health care, foreign languages, humanities, cultural studies, history and philosophy and religious studies.

And you can look further down the road:

Within one year of graduation, 84 percent of our most recent grads were employed and 20 percent were pursuing additional education; yes, results are not mutually exclusive and some students are doing both.

Two-thirds of our most recent grads stay in Minnesota, adding to the workforce and helping fuel our state’s economy.

Looking four years after commencement, our graduates’ average earnings rank first in the state.